World War Z

With the popularity of shows like AMC's The Walking Dead, and countless video games and movies on them, zombies are quite the hot ticket right now. World War Z by Max Brooks was recommended to me by a friend about a year ago, and although I hadn't bothered to read it until now, because, well, I didn't read back then, the couple of months I spent living through the pages were quite an adventure.

World War Z is a different kind of book, instead of being "in" the story, you're in every story: every person that survived the zombie apocalypse. You live in their shoes, share their fears, yell along with them, and jump out of your seat when shit hits the fan. You hear about how zombies were able to cross the world and spread the disease from South East Asia in rural China all the way to the US. You hear stories from human traffickers to the everyday person to the pilot shot down in "zack" territory; the hope in Israel to the winters that froze them. Brooks covers everything from the Battle of Yonkers to the final cleansing of the US and the beginning of the end. Everything is explained, and that's what makes it so good : )

The whole phenomenon of the zombie apocalypse is explained so well, it's scary to see how plausible it is. For myself, I love the whole zombie fetish that's sweeping the world and the US in particular; WWZ definitely doesn't disappoint. About half way through, I had learned that there will be a movie coming out about this book, so hurry up and read this first!! With so many stories, i doubt they will all make it onto the big screen, and as with every other book turned movie, the little things you miss in the movie make all the difference.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

It was a book I remember reading over the summer before going to Pee-Wee Football practice and it was one that I remembered so fondly. When the movie came out, I put a face to a character, but it never really did live up to my expectations - I've been told movies never live up to the books. Unfortunately, I didn't quite enjoy The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis that much this time around. Much clearer was the allegory that I missed when I was in 5th Grade - that and the writing that my high school teachers would die if I dared to pass it in.

It's a story about belief and faith, some can make the connections to Jesus and his life and from what I read this time, it's a wonderful and simple way to explain the Christian faith to younger children. The story itself is short and fun, filled with happiness, some despair, but in the end the good guys win (Father Christmas/Santa Claus even makes an appearance).

The only sad part about this book, is the fact that I couldn't finish it this time around. I grew tired with about 20 pages left of the matter-of-factness that Lewis used in writting the book, often simply talking straight to the reader. In many of the other books I'll read and within really good writing, we english users have a better way of describing things. It's a blast from the past, but in all seriousness, at my level of writing and reading, it's not for me. Leave this one to the five year olds that will enjoy the writing alot more, lest you believe that a fifth grader was the one to actually write it.

Just a note, since no one reads the blog, I'm not going to have an active vote on my next book....so just wait for the surprise and be ready! As always, reading on a continual basis, maybe once a week, would be really nice, and comments are a godsend :)

Nook

Christmas was a few days ago and I got this wonderful new toy. I had been looking at it for some time, but I just didn't have the money for it. After much thought, and doing my own research, it landed on the Christmas list and then under the tree (yay!!), and I finally got the one tool that is going to help this blog flourish...a Nook. I opted for the simple e-ink $79 Black Friday version, and after reading my first book, I LOVE IT <3

It has a small screen with the amazing technology of e-ink: simple to read and it doesn't hurt my already failing eyes. It's small and light-weight and just works. The small screen and the broken up pages make it seem like you're flying through a book, page by page, and in fact, it was the first time I sat down to read a book for more than a couple hours. The best part is that it apparently can last about two months on one charge. It may not have the apps or the show and tell of an iPad, but for book lovers or that that wish to become one, it's the perfect thing for you.

Life

It's sometimes funny how life comes along. When I started this blog - it's the third one I've started so far - I had the hopes of constantly updating it to become incredible; as you can see, I have not. And before becoming my third failed blog, I now have hopes to revive it. So where I left off was a wonderful 'documentary-esque' book about family members killing daughters/wives/sisters for what they viewed as doing something to hurt their honor. I left off somewhere about 40 pages into the book and it seemed really interesting, but then my job started to creep into my personal time and with all the holidays, there's not much time to read when your girlfriend that you haven't seen for a month is back from school. So, my wonderful writing stopped and the summer reading list is void of so many check marks.

Google has this wonderful thing for us bloggers where we get to see who is viewing what we write and it's certainly discouraging to see that my blog is like looking at a black hole: void of any viewers interested in my personal challenge. But I've had encouragement to not give up: "Just keep writing and eventually someone will listen". I'm going to go with it...take the challenge of writing until the Internet gets tired of me ;)

Murder in the Name of Honor

My girlfriend is an International Affairs major, and she dropped off a bunch of books for me to sell a couple months ago. Me being me, they're still sitting on my desk, yet to be put online (sorry honey). So in that wonderful pile of books, I found Murder in the Name of Honor by Rana Husseini. It's about a journalist from Jordan, for those of you geographically challenged it's in the Middle East under Syria and in between Israel and Iraq. This journalist, the author, is sticking her neck out and checking out something that everyone else refused to talk about: honor killings.

Basically, the book chronicles the final moments and aftermath of the victims of honor killings: family members killing another family member to regain the family's honor. It's sickening. I can't imagine killing my sister or my wife or my daughter because of something that they did: marrying the wrong man, falling in love with the wrong person, coming home pregnant, losing her virginity, or even being raped.

Now before everyone comes out and says that it's part of their culture out there in the Middle East, I'll tell you that it supposedly happens all throughout Europe, especially the UK, and in the US.

I'm fascinated. It should be a good read, I mean I'm already excited about it and I've only read the forward. It's only 200 or so pages and my girlfriend read it in only two days, but I'm expecting to do it in a week, maybe. We'll see. And I'll report back to my aspiring readers whether it's worth your time.

Angels and Demons

Laying around in my aunt's basement on its way to goodwill, it was the perfect start to my summer reading list, my aunt even recommended it. A month beforehand, my girlfriend had suggested a Dan Brown book, but I said that I wouldn't be reading anything written by him because of his "semi-historical" stories; I said it would be a waste of my time. I didn't know how wrong I was until I started reading.

Flying through the air in what sounded like a futuristic plane, challenging concepts, and "discovering" the past, I quickly forgot that I was reading a fiction, a "semi-historical" book; the history had very little to do with the detective work I followed, uncovering one piece of the puzzle at a time. Angels and Demons guided me through a crusade against the Roman Catholic Church that never ended, following in the footsteps of prospective Illuminati of Renaissance Italy.

The sharp debate between science and religion heralded as a major battle, surviving time, and threatening to end Rome, held the center of attention in the story.

Can God and science live together? There were those that felt that the two could not possibly mix, there were some that felt God destroyed the advances science has made: He was only created as a way to control the masses and to force many to follow a doctrine without challenging it. And then there were some who felt science challenged God, His creation, His meaning: as science gets more precise and explains more mysteries, God ends up playing a smaller role, until eventually, even God is explained, leaving no higher power and the Church only a pile of rocks with people of the past. Then, there was Leonardo Vetra. A priest and one of the most advanced scientists in his time, he was the perfect balance. He explained God through science, saw His beauty in the miracles of slim odds that created and shaped our universe. He was a great way for the Church to head towards, he would be the guide for where the Pope will go in regards to science and religion.

With your own detective work, mastered from watching CSI or Columbo (win if you know that show, it's one of my favorite), you work with an American Scholar, an old guy that teaches at Harvard. Don't let my description fool you, he's pretty good, incredibly smart, and he even surprised me with what he was able to do physically. Your investigation brings you through some of the most secret places, areas of the Vatican that very few know about, let alone see. And you discover it all: secret passage ways, secret messages, and a trail around the city of Rome that you can go travel now, after you read this book. It involves grisly murders and omg moments where I was literally cheering for that old American. The best part: an ending that goes from an OMG to a "I just shit my pants". It's insane. It's good. Really good.

So in case you haven't read anything I said, I liked it. It was a great read, even for me. I was surprised and I was proven wrong. I definitely recommend this book.

Make sure to vote on the next book you think I should read, comment on your thoughts about science and religion, and check out my new page which will be full of reviews on all the books I've read....eventually.

My Summer Reading List

Usually, upon graduation of high school, people forget about summer reading lists. Summer is either full with classes, a job, an internship, or just vegging out. I usually chose the latter and conjoined it with a part-time job.

Summer reading lists were something that elementary school kids or high-schoolers did; I was in college, a place where I can take the summer off and play Xbox all day, every day, if I wanted to.

I never did read much. Starting in 8th Grade, I discovered that I could just not read and still get by. It continued in high school, the worst at sophomore year where I believe I read most of one book and half of another. In total, it was a little more than one book that I read that year; one book out of eight. Senior year I had a much better English teacher where I read all but one book (senioritis kicked in at that point). And for summer reading all those years, I always seemed to miss one book, but the school made it easy on me with a pass/fail system that allowed me to miss that one required reading and still get that 100 to show the parents.

So why start now?

Not only am I starting now, but I'm starting over. My years of half-ass reading are going out the door and I'm going to start anew.

My girlfriend is an avid reader. She's a beast and can read through an entire book in a couple hours. I cannot. It takes me awhile, maybe around a month if I'm good at it and keep to it. But, she has inspired me to read, to take adventures through the many pages of a mystery, be enthralled in a fantasy, and to like a book a whole lot more than a movie.

In April, I decided to challenge myself. This 20 something year old created my first summer reading list full of titles by Locke, Mark Twain, John Grisham, Charlotte Bronte, Shakespeare, J.D. Salinger, and even J.K. Rowling. Now its October and I've read a total of one book (more on that later) but I thought I would share my story with the world. I want to take you on my journey. I want to inspire others to read and show people that even though you're not the fastest reader, it shouldn't stop you from reading.

Throughout my journey, I'm going to keep updates, let you know what I think of the books I read and hopefully I can inspire someone else, a fellow once non-reader, to pick up a book and to challenge themselves. I ask you to comment, tell me your story, tell me what you thought of the books I've read, and suggest others for me to read.